NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Gisela Mosig, 72, a pioneering genetic researcher and distinguished faculty member at Vanderbilt University, died Jan. 12 at Alive Hospice. She had been undergoing cancer treatment for two years.
Dr. Mosig, a researcher and teacher at Vanderbilt for the past 38 years, was a central figure in understanding the role that DNA recombination plays in the replication of DNA and in the evolution of genomes. She had well over 100 publications in scientific journals.
One of the few women scientists of her era in molecular biology, she blazed the trail for others who followed. Dr. Mosig was a professor in Vanderbilt’s Department of Molecular Biology, which recently became the Biological Sciences Department. She was named professor emerita in May 2002.
Born in the Saxony region of Germany, Dr. Mosig grew up on a farm, where she first became interested in biology and genetics. After World War II, her home fell under East German rule.
In high school she got a strange introduction to how ideology can affect the scientific quest for truth. Overnight her instructors stopped teaching Mendel’s scientifically accepted rules of genetic inheritance and switched to a theory, espoused by Stalin’s chief agronomist, T.D. Lysenko, that environment could change genes.
This difficult atmosphere helped her decide to escape East Germany. In 1948, when she was just 18, she managed to cross by bicycle into West Germany, carrying only the possessions that would fit on her bike.
In West Germany, she began her university studies. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Bonn and her graduate work, studying plant genetics, at the University of Cologne, where she was awarded her doctorate in 1959.
At Cologne, Dr. Mosig met Gus Doermann, a distinguished Vanderbilt biologist. He inspired her to study the genetics of a virus, bacteriophage T4, and recruited her to take a postdoctoral fellowship working in his lab at Vanderbilt. Studies with bacteriophage T4 led various labs to make some of the groundbreaking discoveries in understanding how genes function.
From 1962 to 1965, Dr. Mosig was a research associate at the Carnegie Institution Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., where she worked with Nobel laureate Alfred Hershey. With Hershey’s approval and support, she challenged lab dogma about the way the T4 virus’s DNA recombined.
This zest for re-examining and challenging scientific dogma continued when Dr. Mosig became an independent scientist and faculty member at Vanderbilt in 1965. She shared her philosophy with the many students she taught and inspired over the years.
Dr. Mosig’s achievements earned her many honors. She recently gave an invited lecture to a National Academy of Sciences colloquium, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. In recognition of her many contributions, her colleagues elected her a fellow of the American Society of Microbiology in 1994.
At Vanderbilt, she was honored for both her research and her teaching, winning the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research in 1995 and the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 1989.
Recently, an interview with Dr. Mosig was included as a chapter in a textbook on genetics. Asked how she maintained her enthusiasm for science for so long, she said, "I have been so privileged to work on and teach something that interests me most. It far exceeded any expectation that I had when I grew up. Is it surprising that I am enthusiastic about it?"
Dr. Mosig’s interests extended far beyond science. She was a patron of the arts and environmental causes, and her adventurous spirit led her to travel around the world.
Dr. Mosig is survived by a large family in Germany: three brothers and four sisters, 16 nieces and nephews and 22 grandnieces and grandnephews.
Over the years Dr. Mosig hosted four of the younger generation of her family as they spent a semester or more studying in Nashville. Her niece, Kristina Mosig, studied at Belmont University. Nephews Ruediger and Axel Mosig attended the University School of Nashville. Her grandniece, Julianne Schubert, attended the University School just last year.
Dr. Mosig is also remembered by the many scientists whom she taught by example to love science and revere the truth.
Burial will be private. A memorial service will be held later in Nashville. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Alive Hospice of Nashville, the Nashville Symphony or the Tennessee Conservation League.
-VU-